


Like Flowers in a Drowning Garden

by coldfiredragon



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alice POV, Alice's apology tour, Angst, Because trying to write from Eliot's POV was too painful, F/M, Guilt, HEARTBREAKING ANGST, M/M, Open ended, References to Depression, being brave isn't what it's cracked up to be, loss and regret, no one is happy, post 4x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 14:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfiredragon/pseuds/coldfiredragon
Summary: Alice's apology tour takes her to Eliot.  She has to try -- for Quentin's sake, but not everyone has to forgive.





	Like Flowers in a Drowning Garden

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of feelings post 4x12. Many of them negative, many of them reasonable, like Quentin having no idea that Eliot has decided to be brave. It kills me that the writers chose to do this again, and that its most likely going to lead to a love triangle in season 5. It kills me that Eliot has no one to blame but himself, because he's the one who was scared when Quentin was brave.

That the effort has to be made is what Alice tells herself as she hesitantly walks toward the patio door. None of her friends had taken her initial overtures well, but they were slowly forgiving her or at least doing their best to mask their real feelings towards her. This will be the hardest bridge to cross, but she has to try because Eliot's too important to Quentin for her to not. 

Eliot has been himself for days, and they have been the longest days. The library is still after them, so there are seven of them living basically in each others' pockets. Privacy comes at a premium. Getting someone alone is almost impossible, and the walls are so thin. There isn't enough ambient to waste on silencing charms. She catches him sitting out on the patio with his flask and a cigarette. 

“Eliot?” He hasn't spoken to her at all. As soon as he sees her, there has been a silent and immediate excuse to be anywhere else, but she has to try. His shoulders drop, and the flask rises to his lips, then the cigarette. A cloud of silvery smoke puffs through the air. “Can we try and talk?” Alice closes her eyes as she waits for a response and tries not to think about how he'd blossomed like a flower and leaned up to kiss Quentin as soon as he'd woken up and seen him. It had been so much like one of the flowers in that garden... the ones that bloomed and died in the space of a thought. 

She'd heard snippets of the whispered declaration, words of love, of fear, peaches, and plums, and proof of concept, _Please give me a chance, Q. We work, we work, we know we work._ Quentin's gaze had dropped to Eliot's shoulder, then Quentin had looked at her, and Eliot had looked at her, and he'd wilted. Quentin had been looking at her, she had been looking at Eliot, and Quentin had missed the light going out in Eliot's eyes. Something inside of him had closed off. 

When Quentin had finally looked at Eliot again, he'd wilted as well, and Alice had realized that whatever was blossoming between her and Quentin had probably just been dealt an irreversible blow. 

“El...” Quentin had reached to cup his cheek, but tears had spilled down Eliot's face before his digits ever made contact. 

“Be happy, you deserve it, Q. I was afraid, and I let it ruin my chance. I'm brave enough to admit that I fucked up.” Alice didn't have the context to understand what he'd meant. Eliot's gaze had swept the room, over Quentin and her and Penny, then he'd leaned and rested his head against his knees. It had taken Alice a moment to realize that he'd probably been looking for Margo's comfort in the absence of Quentin's, and when he'd found that affection was lacking as well, he'd crumbled. Penny finally seemed to regain himself, because he'd lurched forward with almost robotic motions, touched Eliot's shoulder, and disappeared with him. 

He'd come back for the rest of them a few minutes later, and all of them had been walking on eggshells since. Quentin seemed broken. Eliot wouldn't speak to any of them; even Margo seemed caught at a distance. 

“What is there to talk about?” Eliot reaches for what Alice thinks is a drink coaster – made of clay and a shade of faded sun-bleached orange. It's almost as if holding it burns him because he puts it down again immediately. Alice opens and closes her mouth. _'I'm sorry.'_ doesn't begin to bridge the gap.

“Don't hate Quentin because of me.” The words come out as a plea, because if Quentin doesn't at least have Eliot as a friend, then Alice isn't sure what will happen to him. She remembers how nonchalantly Quentin had brushed off the prospect of his own death when he'd believed that Eliot was already gone. 

“I don't; I can't hate Quentin. I love him in ways you will never, ever _fathom_ , Alice.”

“Can't we be friends for his sake?” Eliot flicks the ashes off the cigarette, then bring it back to his lips. The silence stretches, filled by the sounds of the city. 

“No.” He pauses, then speaks. “I will never, ever, hate Quentin.” The words are a whisper. “But I'll tell you what I do hate.” Alice steels herself. 

“I hate that he picked you after the way you treated him when all he did was try to save you.” Alice flexes her fingers because she has a growing sense of dread that Eliot has a lot to say. “I hate that you worked with the library and he's still forgiven you. I hate that he forgave you after you destroyed the keys. I hate that your decision cost Julia her god powers after everything she went through.” 

“Eliot, please, I'm sorry. I made a mistake!”

“No, you didn't. You made a unilateral decision to stab us all in the back. You decided to take away magic from everyone because you misused it.” It's like getting punched by Kady, or flipped off by Julia, or having the door nearly shut in her face by Quentin all over again. Alice unwillingly relives all of her failed attempts to reconcile. “You thought you knew best, like always.” 

“I can be wrong! I didn't know what would happen!” Eliot tosses the butt into the bucket of sand someone had set out, then he stands. 

“You had no right to destroy those keys!” The words are almost a yell, and it's more emotion than any of them have seen from him since they got him back. “I _died_ to get one of those keys, Alice.” The sorrow replaces the anger seamlessly. “There's a corpse, with my DNA buried next to a ramshackle hut that was our home, mine and Quentin's, for fifty fucking years. I know it's real because Penny took me back to see if it was real.” Eliot scoops up the clay tile and walks around her, then hesitates with his hand against the sliding glass. “Most of all, more than anything, I hate myself. Quentin chose me, Alice. He asked me to love him for another lifetime because we had proof that it was possible, but I was too afraid to let myself be happy, and I said no. I hate that when I tried to save the man, I love it only made things worse.” 

“Eliot...”

“I can't be here right now.” He pulls the at the glass door and walks inside, then beelines across the apartment for the main entrance. Alice doesn't know what to do with, or how to process, everything that has just been dumped onto her shoulders. Quentin hasn't talked about any of it, but it certainly puts his depression, and the desperation to save Eliot into perspective. Alice closes her eyes. She wonders how much of this is her fault... when the ambient had run out she'd never finished burning the paper to erase Quentin's memory. Does he still remember sitting in the lab with the pile of rope as she'd stalled for time? Her body feels heavy, and she sinks into the chair Eliot had abandoned. Someone needs to go after him. It probably needs to be Quentin, but Alice doesn't know how to tell him that she's only made an already miserable situation worse.

**Author's Note:**

> This killed me. That's all I have to say.


End file.
